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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28917222">Blood and Prayers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niphredilien/pseuds/Niphredilien'>Niphredilien</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>'Til Death Do Us Part [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beta'd, Finrod Is Not Having A Good Time, Finrod Needs A Hug, Flashbacks, Guilt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Nightmares, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:15:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,317</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28917222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niphredilien/pseuds/Niphredilien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Curufinwë Atarinkë does live.<br/>Finrod knows this.</i>
</p><hr/><p>Finrod wants Curufin to wake up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Curufin | Curufinwë &amp; Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Curufin | Curufinwë/Finrod Felagund | Findaráto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>'Til Death Do Us Part [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122155</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Blood and Prayers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello all!<br/>A small story I wrote last night when I should have been sleeping. (And, of course, a huge thank you to my beta <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviacat3/pseuds/oliviacat3">oliviacat3</a> for being able to go through this on such short notice).</p><p>It's an small piece that I intend to accompany the Curufin piece I'm writing for Fëanorian week (of course, I may change what I want to write for Fëanorian week again in the next few months)</p><p>T/W - There is a very small mention of rape in the second to last section and Finrod spends a lot of this story feeling guilty for being still being alive.</p><p>Anyway, I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Curufinwë Atarinkë does not love.</p><p>That’s what the people whisper.</p><p>He has something similar; an obsessive desire, and he will chase after the object of that desire until he has caught them neatly in a web of deceit and manipulation.</p><p><em>His poor son</em>, people whisper, <em>such a sweet boy with a monster for a father</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Curufinwë Atarinkë does not feel pain.</p><p>That’s what the people whisper.</p><p>Cuts and bruises do not bother him. The terrible oath he swore has turned his skin to stone, his heart to ice - blades glance off him, do not chip his shell and poison cannot seep into his frozen veins.</p><p> </p><p>Curufinwë Atarinkë does not live.</p><p>That’s what the people whisper.</p><p><em>Undead</em>, they say, <em>him and his brothers. Dispossessed they are.</em></p><p>Saying anything more feels heretical and the people aren’t heretics.</p><p>Not like those they whisper about.</p><hr/><p>Curufin’s brothers arrive one after the other, coming and leaving together in a long, drawn-out procession.</p><p>Maglor sits at Curufin’s bedside for nearly a week. He had taken the pair of them here with his husband as Lúthien and Celegorm continued the quest. He says little, apart from a few comforting words and plentiful Valinorian lullabies and that week is the only that Finrod has no nightmares when he sleeps.</p><p>Amras had followed. He is entirely silent as he holds his two-day vigil at the foot of Curufin’s bed. He never once acknowledged Finrod’s presence, staring unrelentingly at Curufin’s face until he vanishes and is replaced with Caranthir.</p><p>Caranthir gives Finrod a cursory nod, sets a small pile of letters on the table in the corner and settles in a chair, bringing out a large swathe of fabric and continuing whatever it was he was sewing. Caranthir makes pleasant (albeit one-sided) conversation as he works, telling Finrod of his wife and his children and Amon Ereb and a thousand more completely meaningless things.</p><p>At the end of four days, he leaves his sewing folded up on the table with the letters.</p><p>He is followed by Celegorm.</p><p>Of all Curufin’s brothers, it is Celegorm Finrod has been worrying about the most.</p><p>Celegorm, who argued most vehemently about the futility of the quest. Celegorm, who loved his little brother beyond any and all reason. Celegorm, who had few enemies but hated those few with a burning passion rivalled by maybe only his father.</p><p>Finrod isn’t supposed to sit up unassisted – he isn’t supposed to do anything unassisted – so he lies there as Celegorm makes a beeline for Curufin’s bed. Celegorm strokes his brother’s hair for a moment before  pressing a kiss to his forehead and turning around.</p><p>Finrod expects anger – he <em>deserves</em> anger – but instead, Celegorm settles on the edge of the bed and traces a soft pattern over the back of Finrod’s hand. He is calm; collected in a way Finrod has never seen him.</p><p>“Thank you,” He says eventually, “For surviving.”</p><p>Finrod wants to ask why, why he thinks Finrod should have survived but his injured throat refuses to co-operate.</p><p>They sit there for a very long moment before Celegorm’s face splits into a familiar grin. “We got the Silmaril, if you were wondering. Not that we’re giving it to Thingol – Lúthien agrees with me on that. She is keeping it.”</p><p>Lúthien appears the next day in the room, accompanied by Huan. They join in the vigil at Curufin’s bedside. A cloud of grief hangs over Lúthien, but Celegorm manages to clear it (however slightly), to make her smile.</p><p>For a week and a day, Finrod watches them and then they leave – where to, they do not say – and are replaced by the final brother.</p><p>Maedhros brings with him Celebrimbor, who darts forward to hover at the head of Curufin’s bed, slightly unsure as to what to do, and…</p><p>“Finduilas…” Finrod croaks. He shouldn’t be speaking, to give his torn throat some hope of healing correctly. He does it anyway.</p><p>Finduilas steps out of Maedhros’ shadow and presses a kiss to his cheek before settling herself cross-legged at the end of his bed. It’s an odd distortion of when she was younger and would wake him before the sun was even thinking of rising and settled on the end of his bed to hear him tell her a story.</p><p>He won’t be doing <em>that</em> today.</p><p>“Atya wanted to come,” She says quietly. “But he can’t leave Nargothrond. But I’m here. And I’m going to stay here until you are better.” It is practically a speech, coming from Finduilas. A sign she loves him enough to go out of her comfort zone and tell him so.</p><p>Guilt rises up and Finrod can’t push it back.</p><p>He abandoned Nargothrond – no-one there should love him. No-one there should <em>care</em> about him. He shouldn’t…he shouldn’t have survived.</p><p>“Anno?” Finduilas asks, cocking her head in concern.</p><p>Finrod sobs, squeezing his eyes shut. He wants to curl up – he’s exposed, lying like this – but as he does so, pain shoots through every facet of his being.</p><p>Someone gently strokes his hair, in a faux comforting way and Sauron whispers reassuring words in his ear.</p><p>“There, there Felagund. It’s not so bad now, is it?” Pain shoots through his body with every breath and his arms burn at they hold all his weight, spiked chains digging into his wrists. “You’re being very brave. Now I know who you are.”</p><p>“Let him go,” Finrod whispers through laboured breaths, blinking his blood caked eyes open.</p><p>Sauron looked back at him, a smirk tugging on his lips. “Oh no, that’s not how this works.”</p><p>He forces something into his mouth and laughs as he sputters but is forced to swallow, and then…</p><p>And then the singing begins, a soft lament he has never heard before. His eyes refocus on the face in front of him, the hair darkening from ginger to red; eyes shifting from gold to grey; pale, unblemished skin warping darker and scarred.</p><p>“There we go,” Maedhros says softly. “You aren’t there. You are here, at Hithlum, as a guest of Fingon. Remember?”</p><p>Finrod manages a painful nod, his head woozy.</p><p>“Good.” He pats Finrod’s hand gently and stays right there as against all his instincts, Finrod begins to fall unconscious.</p><hr/><p>Curufinwë Atarinkë does live.</p><p>Finrod knows this.</p><p>It is a fragile thing, that life, clinging to the son of Fëanor with each shallow, fluttering breath. Finrod lies on his bed and watches each struggling inhale and exhale – just as a confirmation that Curufin is alive, that Finrod hasn’t thrown his life away.</p><p>(<em>Yet</em>, a treacherous voice in his head whispers.)</p><p> </p><p>Curufinwë Atarinkë does feel pain.</p><p>Finrod knows this.</p><p>His screams will haunt Finrod for as long as he lives. Of that, he is sure.</p><p>Thû, Gorthaur, Sauron – whatever name the monster goes by – had taken an apparent delight in dragging him up from the pits to watch Curufin’s torture, his rape, his pain…</p><p>The healers would have moved him into Curufin’s room even if he hadn’t asked them to. He woke too often from nightmares and undid all their hard work by dragging his injured body down the corridor, just to check, just to make sure…</p><p>He was found more often in Curufin’s bed than his own.</p><p> </p><p>Curufinwë Atarinkë does love.</p><p>Finrod knows this.</p><p>He loves like stars burn – hot and greedy.</p><p>Finrod has been on the receiving end of that love – made to feel like he deserves all the world.</p><p>Finrod has felt Curufin’s kiss – gentle in comparison to the fire in his eyes. Finrod has talked with Curufin for hours – slipped into his bed and whispered until the first movements of the day began. Finrod has watched Curufin in the forge; worn the circlets and jewellery that he has been made; seen Curufin’s smile, reserved for so few.</p><p>He loves Curufin and he <em>will</em> wake up. Finrod is sure of this.</p><p>He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he doesn’t.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Quenya Translations:<br/>Atya - Father (Informal)<br/>Anno - Uncle (Informal)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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